Today I make it official

The signatures have been gathered. The petitions have been notarized. Tax clearance letters are in hand. It's time. This afternoon I turn in my signatures to the Election Board to secure my place on the ballot. I fell just short of my goal of obtaining all 300 verified signatures by myself, going door to door. By my count I got 320 signatures but only 294 are verified. I would average about one signature for every ten voters I talked to. Sometimes I would forget to ask. Sometimes body language told me they were less than thrilled to have anyone at their front door. One night in particular I think it was about 10 degrees so I wasn't asking anyone to linger in their doorway very long! The last week I've known I have my signatures so I stopped asking which lets me cover a lot more ground. I was pretty stringent in disqualifying signatures. If a person signed with their married name but were still registered with their unmarried name, I threw it out. Wrong address but still in the 4th District? Threw it out. Maybe the Election Board will be more generous than I was and my 294 will become 300. Fortunately some motivated Hyde Parkers went out and picked up about 50 more signatures from their neighbors so we're in the clear. Thank you Hyde Park neighborhood for pushing me over the top! I'm proud of the fact that not one signature was collected by standing in front of a polling place or a grocery store. It was sort of a silly little constraint I put on myself, but I think it paid off. I used every signature as a chance to talk to the voter. Hopefully make an impression. It took much longer, but I have a recollection of almost every signature on these sheets. Where I was, what the person might have said, etc. That's the kind of voter contact money just can't buy. So off I'll go this afternoon to 1828 Walnut. There won't be any cameras there. I'm not running for mayor, and I haven't been indicted. The news just isn't interested in city council races. Funny thing is? If I'm elected I get just as many votes as the mayor. One.